The Chevy Volt, Bill O'Reilly And The Postman's Butt

Bob Lutz
, ContributorI'm a car guy, and that's (mostly) what I write about.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

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Well, here we go once more! The Chevrolet Volt is again cast in its familiar role as the poster child of President Obama's socialist meddling in the free automotive market. The trigger for the latest salvos from the rabid, sadly misinformed right is the unfortunate fact that five weeks of Volt production had to be cancelled to balance inventories of unsold cars.

This is pretty much what I said would happen in the aftermath of deliberately misinterpreted NHTSA crash test results and the attendant right-wing furor over this four-wheeled menace to all we hold dear in America: U.S. jobs are in jeopardy because major portions of the American public believe, as Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly claimed, that they "catch fire."

After said Fox News turkey, there may well have been some backroom discussions between GM and Fox because, oddly enough, shortly thereafter, quite a few Volt commercials ran on Fox for which I doubt any money was exchanged.

So, the latest update: two nights ago, the imperious, self-glorifying O'Reilly, unquestioned ruler of the "No Spin Zone," once again kicked the "Volt" around and proclaimed "several have caught fire."

Let me reiterate:

1) The Volt was largely my idea, and I was its undeniable champion. Work on it was started in 2006. Obama was elected in 2008.

2) No Volt in service has ever shown as much as a wisp of smoke. Not in normal service, and not in crashes. The three Volt battery fires all occurred under extremely destructive experimental conditions. Two of the fires were induced in batteries not mounted in in cars.

3) Those who know me will vouch for my credentials as a conservative and vocal global warming skeptic. I spent 11 years as a Marine attack aviator trained and ready to take out Communists during the Cold War.

That's the truth, whether "no spin O'Reilly" likes it or not.

Meanwhile, the dastardly, communist Volt's rebadged sister car, the Opel Ampera, was just selected as European Car of the Year by 59 of Europe's leading automotive journalists. But what do they know? They're only Europeans! (Incidentally, it's the first time in history that an American-engineered and produced car has won European Car of the Year. A source of national pride? No … according to the Right-heads, a reason for shame!)